10 Facts About the History of LGBTQ Pride Month

Since 1970, the LGBTQ community has marked June as Pride Month—a time to celebrate what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender while demanding equality and liberation from cis and heteronormative constraints. Pride parades and marches, which are traditionally held on the last weekend in June, commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a watershed moment in LGBTQ history when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Manhattan that is now a national monument, fought back against a police raid.

This year marks the 54th anniversary of the first gay Pride march, which was held on the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Read on for the history of Pride Month and LGBTQ activism in the United States.

There was a movement for equality for LGBTQ people long before Pride Month.

There is a storied history of LGBTQ activism in the United States that dates back decades before the Stonewall riots. In 1924, Henry Gerber, a German immigrant, founded the Society for Human Rights in Chicago; it was the first group to campaign for equality for LGBTQ people in the United States. In 1955, a group of women including Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded the Daughters of Bilitis in San Francisco, which emerged as the first lesbian rights group in the United States. In the 1960s, the Mattachine Society, the most prominent “homophile” organization in the U.S., held “annual reminders” at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall every Fourth of July, where they advocated for lesbian and gay equality.

The Stonewall riots were not America’s first LGBTQ uprising.

In May 1959, a group of LGBTQ individuals who were fed up with being mistreated by the police fought back at Cooper Do-Nuts in Los Angeles. According to Out, the group, which was led by several transgender women, “pelted officers with donuts, coffee, and paper plates until they were forced to retreat and return with larger numbers.” It is believed to be the first documented LGBTQ uprising in U.S. history.

The first gay Pride parade was held in Chicago.

Most people know the first Pride marches took place in 1970 to mark the first anniversary of Stonewall. While the Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March in New York City is widely considered to be the first Pride parade, it actually occurred one day after Chicago held its first march, which technically makes Chicago the birthplace of Pride.

Brenda Howard, a bisexual woman, is considered the “Mother of Pride.”

While the first Pride parade may have been in Chicago, the mantle of “Mother of Pride” belongs to a lifelong New Yorker: Brenda Howard. A Bronx-born bisexual woman, Howard organized the Christopher Street Liberation Day March and is hailed as one of the 20th century’s leading voices in bisexual rights and equality. Howard’s activism spanned decades and led to her multiple arrests for civil disobedience—including while demonstrating for women’s health and the rights of those living with HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and protesting against the firing of a lesbian in Georgia in the 1990s. Howard passed away in 2003.

People still debate whether Pride should be about liberation or equality.

Early groups advocating for equality for LGBTQ people, such as the Mattachine Society, focused heavily on respectability and convention, as the dress code for their “annual reminders” demonstrated (women in dresses; men in jackets and ties). The first Pride marches, however, were dominated by liberationists who found the confines of heteronormativity stifling and antithetical to the LGBTQ cause. These conflicts continued to play out over the ensuing decades, and eventually came to a head in the 1980s and 1990s, when Pride marches became less radical and began to transform into the celebratory (as opposed to overtly political and revolutionary) marches we know today [PDF]. The debate over the nature of Pride still rages within the modern LGBTQ community, with many modern radicals reminding us that “Stonewall was a riot.”

The Pride flags have their own interesting histories.

The rainbow flag, now a ubiquitous symbol of the LGBTQ community, first appeared in the 1970s. Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco city supervisor, tasked artist/activist Gilbert Baker with creating a symbol for the gay community to use in place of the pink triangle, which Nazi Germany forced gay men to wear in concentration camps. Baker created the first Pride flag in 1978, dyeing the fabrics himself.

The transgender Pride flag similarly arose from a challenge, as its creator, Monica Helms, told Atlanta Magazine in 2020. The creator of the bisexual pride flag, Mike Page, challenged Helms to create a flag for the transgender community. “One day, I woke up with the idea for the colors—the traditional color, light blue, for boys, pink for girls, and a single white stripe for those who are transitioning, gender neutral, or intersex,” she said. The flag was first flown at Phoenix Pride in 2000. In 2014, Helms’s original flag was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Not all Pride parades and LGBTQ celebrations are held in June.

While June is traditionally the month we celebrate Pride, many Southern parades occur in the autumn, presumably to take advantage of cooler temperatures. Orlando Pride and Kentuckiana Pride in Louisville, among others, occur closer to National Coming Out Day (October 11) than they do the anniversary of Stonewall. Other events, such as Atlanta Black Pride (which is held during Labor Day weekend), occur throughout the year, meaning you can celebrate LGBTQ Pride almost any time.

Bill Clinton was the first sitting U.S. president to officially recognize Pride Month.

On June 11, 1999, President Bill Clinton issued Proclamation No. 7203 [PDF]. It was the first time a U.S. president had officially recognized June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. (On the other hand, Clinton also established the odious “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1994, which prohibited openly LGBTQ people from serving in the military.) Clinton's successor, President George W. Bush, did not recognize Pride Month during his eight years in office. President Barack Obama, however, followed Clinton’s example, marking Pride Month (and expanding it to include bisexual and transgender Americans) every year he was in office. President Donald Trump did tweet about Pride month in 2019, but never officially recognized it. President Joe Biden’s administration has issued a proclamation recognizing June as Pride month each year since 2021, which has noted that:

“During LGBTQ+ Pride Month, we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are fighting to live freely and authentically. In doing so, they are opening hearts and minds, and laying the foundation for a more just and equitable America. This Pride Month, we affirm our obligation to uphold the dignity of all people, and dedicate ourselves to protecting the most vulnerable among us.”

The first San Francisco Trans March took place in 2004.

In 2004, an anonymous email circulated around San Francisco’s transgender community. The trial for the murder of Gwen Araujo, a young transgender woman from the Bay Area, was underway, and the author of the email called for a trans rights march. For many years, San Francisco’s Pride celebrations had consisted of two events: one which was trans-inclusive and one that, according to historian Susan Stryker [PDF], “expressly forbid transgender people from participating.” By 2004, however, things were changing and SF Pride, the organization responsible for San Francisco’s Pride march, supported the first annual Trans March. The event, which is part of the wider Pride Month celebrations in the city, continues to this day.

New York City’s Pride is on June 30, 2024.

While the march is the centerpiece of June’s Pride offerings, the city will be awash in street fairs, parties, symposia, and other events all month long. The theme for this year is “Reflect. Empower. Unite.”

Read More About LGBTQ History:

This article was originally published in 2021; it has been updated for 2024.